CCTV reported this morning that over 170,000 passengers had been stranded at the Guangzhou Rail Station due to heavy snow. (Details here.)
For those not blessed to have ever been in China during the Spring Festival travel season (春运), think of the days before the Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations combined and then quadrupled. It’s total bedlam under the best of circumstances.
One can only imagine what’s going on in that train station right now, the restroom situation alone would probably be sufficient to give even the hardiest traveler a lifetime supply of nightmares, and God only knows what will happen when the “line” forms for the first train out. It’s going to make a rugby scrum look like tea at Tiffany’s.
There is also a Chinese perspective on the New Year travel chaos posted at 1510: “Spring Festival Travel is an all-out War” (Zh)
4 responses so far ↓
1 28481k // Jan 28, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Well, it seems that the Central Government have little control on the ground in this case: they could hardly pull their strings (various provinces) together to resolve the snowstorm even though it is supposed a “centralised” country. The leaders are more concerned on energy transport than helping the people who are trapped in the snowstorm. The real problem of the relatively low transport link density with the high traffic demand is exacerbated under the widespread snowstorm.
Your link to the rant on the yearly chaos of Spring Travel Season is spot on! The only solution is to stagger vacations and create more jobs in the hinterland though, otherwise facing with infinite traffic, even more transport infrastructure would eventually be soaked up.
2 frances // Jan 28, 2008 at 4:48 pm
I’ve been through that station a couple of times for Xinnian, it’s utter insanity even on a normal day, and when the vast forecourt fills up it’s like a refugee camp. (Still , coming back to Gz that same time in 2003 with SARS breaking out it was a strange ghost town)
3 wu ming // Jan 28, 2008 at 5:36 pm
dear god, that’s not a pleasant thing to visualize.
4 Jeremiah // Jan 28, 2008 at 11:06 pm
I just saw news footage of the Guangzhou station posted at 56.com (h/t Global Voices Online). It’s quite a story, and so far people are staying pretty calm. Hopefully they get the trains running soon so everybody can be on their way.
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